Panoramic catadioptric image systems are used to present panoramic views, and are used for example to give a tank crew a 360 degree view of a surrounding landscape.
The known catadioptric image systems suffer from a type of angular distortion commonly called "wheel spoke distortion", which results from the variable radius measured from the inner radius to the outer radius of the image. The spoke distortion can be corrected by means of sophisticated, expensive optical components. The optical correction of wheel spoke distortion, however, has proven not to be cost-effective, and therefore panoramic optical systems are advantageously of the time-share rotational type rather than static type. The present invention is based on electronic time-sharing.
It is an important drawback of the known systems that they are, for practical purposes, limited to a single viewing station, unless their construction is made considerably more complex.
It is accordingly an object of the instant invention to provide an improved panoramic imaging system which does not suffer from the drawbacks of the known panoramic imaging systems based on optical correction of the spoke wheel distortion.